Sonomechanics Blog

Combustion equipment (e.g., diesel engines, power boilers) emits significant amounts of hazardous gasses, such as Nitrous Oxides (NOx), hydrocarbons (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2) as well as particulate matter (PM) and black smoke. Due to the widespread use of this equipment, the resulting damage to human health and the environment is tremendous. Adding 5 – 25% of water to the base fuel, such as diesel or kerosene, in the form of a very fine emulsion (nanoemulsion) significantly reduces these harmful emissions.

Environmental Benefits

In terms of environmental benefits, water-in-diesel emulsion is one of the most attractive petroleum-based alternative fuels. It can be used in unmodified diesel engines, and has been shown to reduce the NOx emission by up to 35% because water reduces the local adiabatic flame temperature. In addition, PM is reduced by up to 60% and black smoke commonly associated with the use of straight diesel is dramatically reduced because the emulsion fuel burns much more completely.

Economic Benefits

There is also an immediate economic benefit to using emulsion fuels. The addition of finely dispersed water reduces fuel consumption by improving its atomization and burning efficiency. Since water has a much lower boiling temperature than the fuel, it is vaporized much more readily upon heating. At the “superheat limit temperature” of about 270 C, micro-explosions of the fine water droplets occur throughout the emulsified fuel. This enhances atomization and leads to better mixing of fuel and air in the engine. The presence of a large low-tension water-oil interface improves the atomization further. Therefore, although water replaces part of the fuel, the loss in energy content is mostly compensated by the increase in the remaining fuel’s combustion efficiency. The net result is a significant fuel cost reduction, which commonly exceeds any emulsion manufacture expenses.

Achieving Stability

The main challenge faced by emulsion fuel manufacturers is how to achieve long-term stability of the final product while minimizing the costs of production. While stable microemulsion-based fuels have been introduced to the market before, they had limited commercial success because they required prohibitively high surfactant ( surface-active agents used to stabilize emulsions) concentrations. Nanoemulsion-based fuels, on the other hand, are much more promising, as their stability comes with much lower surfactant content requirements. Since strong shear forces are necessary for the production of stable nanoemulsions, special equipment, such as a high-pressure homogenizer or a high-intensity ultrasonic processor, must be used. While this results in additional production costs, these are commonly outweighed by cost benefits due to the reduction in surfactant content.

Ultrasonic Production

Ultrasound is a simple and effective technique for producing stable water-in-fuel emulsions with nanometer-size droplets (nanoemulsions). The driving force of ultrasonic emulsification is acoustic cavitation, which creates violently and asymmetrically imploding vacuum bubbles, causing micro-jets and strong shear forces that break up water droplets down to nanometer sizes. A lab-scale demonstration of this process is available in this video.

Laboratory, bench and industrial-scale ultrasonic processors are available for the production of emulsion fuels with exceptional stability. Once the fuel formulation is finalized and the procedure is optimized in the laboratory, the process can be directly transferred to the production scale, where the quality of the final product is maintained while the productivity is increased by a predictable "scale-up factor". Watch this video for more information.

Dr. A. Peshkovsky is a co-founder and President of ISM. He is responsible for setting the overall strategic direction for the company as well as for overseeing equipment and applications development. Dr. Peshkovsky holds a B.A. in Chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Columbia University. He is the author of over 40 scientific papers, patents and presentations as well as two books on ultrasonic liquid processing.

welcome
Thank you for just
I'm from Yemen is a state located south of the Arabian Peninsula.
A population of 25 million people.
The suffering experienced by people who are in the high cost of fuel and the unavailability more days in this part of On the other hand a power outage. That's why people have had the use of diesel generators in spite of the high cost of hypertext diesel to run their farms and factories and businesses. Many of them stopped their business.
Because of this suffering started all look for new techniques to relieve people of these subsidized until it reached the Internet in your site
And now I would love to work with you trade your product and imported diesel mixing with water in quantities big and better be confused ratio of not less than 50-50-and directly
I want you to send me specifications and prices will be a large volume of activity and successful if the quality is excellent. Thank you
Required specifications as follows
-1 device works directly on diesel generators or trucks
2-mixing ratio of not less than 50-50
3. The quantity of production starting from 5 liters per hour to 20 liters per hour
4-desired quantity will determine the quantity of the product by the quality and cost
Note.
If the quality and excellent price and size suitable quantity of at least 5,000 per week in love almost
Mohammed Kahalani

Dear Mohammed,
Thank you for your comment. We will address your request by email.
Best regards,
Iva

Alexey Peshkovsky

Dear Mohammed,
Producing a stable emulsion fuel with a 50%-50% water to diesel mixing ratio is quite challenging. However, if you will be making the fuel right before it is consumed in the diesel generator and, therefore, the long-term stability will not be required, it may work.
The appropriate processor for the flow rate of 5 -20 L/hour is the BSP-1200:
http://sonomechanics.com/products_services/1200_w_bench-scale_processor/
Please let us know if you would like to receive a quotation for this unit.
Best regards,
Alexey